Recent comments

  • On the Program March 26 2009   15 years 5 days ago

    I tried to look it up in the house by searching "875" and all that I can see on this subject is this page: http://delauro.house.gov/files/HR875_Myths_Facts1.pdf
    (It basically debunks everything said, like:
    "There is no language in the bill that would...
    regulate, penalize, or shut down backyard gardens,
    result in farmers' markets being regulated, penalized with fines, or shut down,
    result in the 'death of organic farming', or mandate the use of chemicals or certain types of seeds, etc.
    Is there a link that will take me straight to the bill itself?

  • On the Program March 26 2009   15 years 5 days ago

    Thom,

    You like the story that the USA is this a unique country that was established on an ideal not genetics. I disagree.

    I'd say that the United States was built by almost wiping out the genetics of the indigenous inhabitants and stealing their land, and by enslaving the genetics of millions of Africans and making them work that land. The borders of the U.S. were set through military conquest.

    As far as your belief that all other countries are based on genetics, I'd like to point out that many, maybe the great majority of other countries have had their borders defined by the strength of their military during certain times in their histories. Who ever lived within the borders that the military could defend became part of that country, no matter what their genetics was, unless they were expelled or killed off.

    China has many different ethnicities within it's borders as does Russia. The majority of the population of Argentina is European while the indigenous people make up less than 10%. There are blond haired blue eyed people in northern Italy with Germanic names like Hans Auschenbach, while you're more likely to find darker skinned darker haired guys with names like Giovanni Calabrese further south.

    The nations of the Middle East and Africa were formed by the European colonialists, not by the indigenous people.

    I'd also question your claim that the people who immigrate to this country from Mexico are necessarily the most industrious. A lot of the immigrants are the people who weren't able to make it in their country under the conditions of the time. Many are simple peasants who've been driven off the land their families have lived on for generations, either because they can't afford to sell their crops for the same price that subsidized produce from the U.S. can be sold or because the land has been taken away to grow crops for exports.

    There's a difference between people get on a boat or airplane and move to another place to improve their lives and people who merely cross a border to try to survive. And don't interpret this as a put down of Mexican immigrants. I'm far more accepting of them than you are. I'm just describing the reality of their lives.

    It also seems to me that there's an inconsistency between your prescriptions for the U.S. and Mexico. You say that social change in the U.S. must come from the middle class.

    But you think that social change in Mexico should come from “poor” people who have come to the U.S. illegally because they couldn’t make a decent living in their country. If they won’t go back voluntarily, you want to starve them out. You call it “illegal employer problem”.

    Sorry to have to use the "poor" on your website. I know the world isn't indigenous to your show. I hope it isn't illegal here.

  • On the Program March 26 2009   15 years 5 days ago

    The Bill in the House is H.R. 875 and in the Senate S 425 - you can read more about it at http://www.campaignforliberty.com/blog.php?view=12671 or go to the House and Senate sites and read the actual Bills.

  • On the Program March 26 2009   15 years 5 days ago

    The day the feds come to my small backyrd farm and try to outlaw my activivties is the day I start the new American Revolution. To control our food network is a tatic to control us even further. If we rebel "they" turn the food distribution networks off. WE ARE BEING ENSLAVED in chunks. FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT.
    Nepharous

  • On the Program March 26 2009   15 years 5 days ago

    Check out this post at Talking Points Memo and be somewaht reassured.

    http://tinyurl.com/c4mjhc

  • On the Program March 24 2009   15 years 6 days ago

    "This is Ronald Reagan speaking to you from Hollywood. You know me as a motion picture actor but tonight I'm just a citizen pretty concerned about the national election next month and more than a little impatient with those promises the Republicans made before they got control of Congress a couple years ago.

    I remember listening to the radio on election night in 1946. Joseph Martin, the Republican Speaker of the House, said very solemnly, and I quote, "We Republicans intend to work for a real increase in income for everybody by encouraging more production and lower prices without impairing wages or working conditions", unquote. Remember that promise: a real increase in income for everybody. But what actually happened?

    The profits of corporations have doubled, while workers' wages have increased by only one-quarter. In other words, profits have gone up four times as much as wages, and the small increase workers did receive was more than eaten up by rising prices, which have also bored into their savings. For example, here is an Associate Press Dispatch I read the other day about Smith L. Carpenter, a craftsman in Union Springs, New York. It seems that Mr. Carpenter retired some years ago thinking he had enough money saved up that he could live out his last years without having to worry. But he didn’t figure on this Republican inflation, which ate up all of his savings, and so he's gone back to work. The reason this is news, is Mr. Carpenter is 91 years old.

    Now, take as a contrast the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, which reported a net profit of $210 million after taxes for the first half of 1948; an increase of 70% in one year. In other words, high prices have not been caused by higher wages, but by bigger and bigger profits.

    The Republican promises sounded pretty good in 1946, but what has happened since then, since the 80th Congress took over? Prices have climbed to the highest level in history, although the death of the OPA was supposed to bring prices down through "the natural process of free competition". Labor has been handcuffed with the vicious Taft-Hartley law. Social Security benefits have been snatched away from almost a million workers by the Gearhart bill. Fair employment practices, which had worked so well during war time, have been abandoned. Veterans' pleas for low cost homes have been ignored, and many people are still living in made-over chicken coops and garages.

    Tax-reduction bills have been passed to benefit the higher-income brackets alone. The average worker saved only $1.73 a week. In the false name of economy, millions of children have been deprived of milk once provided through the federal school lunch program. This was the payoff of the Republicans' promises. And this is why we must have new faces in the Congress of the United States: Democratic faces.

    This is why we must not only elect President Truman, but also men like Mayor Hubert Humphrey of Minneapolis, the Democratic candidate for Senator from Minnesota. Mayor Humphrey at 37 is one of the ablest men in public life. He's running against Joe Ball, who was a member of the Senate Labor Committee, helped write the Taft-Hartley law. The Republicans don't want to lose Ball, and are spending a small fortune on his campaign. They've even sent [Thomas] Dewey and [Earl] Warren to Minneapolis to speak for him. President Truman knows the value of a man like Hubert Humphrey in the Senate, and he has been in Minneapolis too, campaigning against Joe Ball. Mayor Humphrey and Ball are the symbols of the political battle going on in America today. While Ball is a banner carrier for Wall Street, Mayor Humphrey is fighting for all the principles advocated by President Truman; for adequate low cost housing, for civil rights, for prices people can afford to pay, and for a labor movement freed of the Taft-Hartley law. I take great pride in presenting my friend from Minneapolis, Mayor Hubert H. Humphrey, candidate for United States Senator."

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=uJDhS4oUm0M
    Reagan Campaigns for Truman in 1948.

  • The Real Criminals are Neither Lynndie England nor the AIG Traders   15 years 1 week ago

    Thanks a lot for identifying the Conservative World View!
    This 'ponzi scheme' may have been: 1/3 irresponsible sound bites, plus 1/3 irresponsible spending, plus 1/3 irresponsible promises, all 'fluff' and no substance! Good on you!!

  • On the Program March 24 2009   15 years 1 week ago

    The audio of President Reagan when he was a Democrat was amazing to hear. I knew he had been a Democrat but to actually hear him criticize the Republican party on social security & labor wages was stunning. I would love to send that audio to everyone I know. Can you provide a link or post it here?

  • On the Program March 24 2009   15 years 1 week ago

    The analysis of mortgage payments at the end of the show is completely and utterly wrong. The payments on a level-payment, self-amortizing mortgage (what most of us have on our homes) consist of two parts, an interest component and a principal component. The interest component is by far the greatest part of the monthly payment at the beginning of the mortgage term because it consists of the entire amount of interest accrued that month on the outstanding principal amount. The outstanding principal shrinks gradually over the term of the mortgage, which means that the interest component of each month's payment also decreases as the principal is paid down. The bank is earning only the stated rate of interest each month, not, as Thom said, 80-90 percent.

    One of the hallmarks of one kind of risky mortgage is what is called negative amortization. In such a loan, the monthly payment is based on a so-called teaser rate, which lasts only a short period of time, sometimes as little as the first month of the mortgage, but the payment only changes once a year. Once the interest rate increases, the required monthly payment is no longer sufficient to pay the interest on the loan as it accrues, so the unpaid interest is added to principal. As I used to tell people when I closed loans like that, "This means that, if you pay only the required payment each month, at the end of a year you will owe more than you do today." Such a loan only works in a rising market, and really doesn't make sense even then unless the borrower has the discipline and ability to pay more than the required payment each month.

    A level-payment, self-amortizing loan could not be structured as Thom and the caller want. The payments could be set up to pay a set amount of principal each month (1/360 of the original loan amount for a 30-year mortgage), but interest would still have to be paid currently on the outstanding principal each month. To take a simple example, a $180,000 mortgage at six percent would start off with a payment of $1400, consisting of $500 principal and $900 interest, which would decrease each month by $2.50 (one month's interest on the $500 principal payment made the previous month). Most people could not afford this. By contrast, a level-payment, self-amortizing mortgage would have a monthly payment of $1079.19 for the same mortgage terms.

    One additional quibble: the "mortgage holder" is the lender, not the borrower. The lender (a/k/a the mortgagee) holds the mortgage (literally, the dead promise) until the borrower (a/k/a the mortgagor) complies with its terms (i.e., fulfills his/her/its/their promise) by paying it off in full, at which time the lender discharges the mortgage.

  • On the Program March 24 2009   15 years 1 week ago

    Reagan ran up the budget deficit at the fastest rate in US history--even accounting deficits that occurred during war. He covered this by increasing social security taxes from 4.8% in 1981 to 15.020%; it's been 15.3% since about 1990. Table available at the following site:

    http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/ProgData/taxRates.html

  • On the Program March 24 2009   15 years 1 week ago

    Thom,

    By all means get David Whorowitz on your show ASAP. Your audience just adores him. We also need another dose of Carrie Ludicrous of the Independent Women's Forum and Urine Brooks of the Ayn Rand Center.

    Last week, I objected to your claim that drug dealing in the black community was an expression of the entrepreneurial spirit among people who don't have a legal outlet for it. In that post, I said that you don't know much about the black community and I don't think you're particularly interested.

    Now here's part of my argument supporting that statement:

    Carrie Lukas, Yaron Brooks, David Horowitz are semi-regulars on your show. I would guess that any of them individually may, and just the 3 of them collectively, were probably on your show more than all the black guests you had on your show over the last 12 months. If that isn't the case, it's only because the candidacy and election of Barack Obama made you seek out opinions of blacks about the racists attacks Obama and/or the controversy over Jeremiah Wright.

    Blacks make up around 12% of the population of this country and Hispanics make up around 15%. What percentage of the guests on your show are from these populations? We're almost at the end of the first quarter of 2009; how many African-American or Hispanic guests have you had on your show so far this year?

    I do remember that one of the few African-American guests you had on your show was Michelle Bernard of the conservative Independent Women's Forum. Maybe Carrie Lukas wasn't available that day.

    I've heard you use the term "white privilege" a few times on your show. You have a choice of what guests you have on your show. You have an abundance of white conservatives, but it seems "people of color need not apply". How do you define "white privilege"?

  • On the Program March 24 2009   15 years 1 week ago

    Endnotes:

    1. U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Historical Tables, annual.

    This was from this website:

    THE LONG FAQ ON LIBERALISM
    Part of the Liberalism Resurgent web site
    © Copyright by Steve Kangas, editor
    website:
    http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/LiberalFAQ.htm#Backdemodeficit

  • The Real Criminals are Neither Lynndie England nor the AIG Traders   15 years 1 week ago

    I didn't know where to make this comment. Thom said he didn't know that he was not on air america any more. someone should let him know!! and put him back.

  • The Real Criminals are Neither Lynndie England nor the AIG Traders   15 years 1 week ago

    Conservative Ideology: "Reverse Robinhood"

    When are we going to be as pissed off as the French masses were in the late 1700s? (too many similarities)

  • On the Program March 24 2009   15 years 1 week ago

    Thom,

    Where did the stats on the debt Reagan and the others Presidents ran up come from? Not that I don't believe they are correct. I just want to be able to back them up when telling friends.

    Thanks!

    P.S. Ruby, you rock!

  • On the Program March 24 2009   15 years 1 week ago

    Thom,

    If someone told you that you could make a good living doing a radio show talking about whatever you wanted to, and all you had to do was tell your listeners that they should buy a 14 miles per gallon Hummer, would you do it?

    Buy American baby!

    Truth in Blogging Statement: B Roll averages over 50 miles per gallon driving a 3 year old Toyota Prius and has No respect for David Horowitz. B Roll is obviously part of the anti-American left.

  • On the Program March 24 2009   15 years 1 week ago

    THE DEMOCRATS DID NOT CONTROL CONGRESS WHILE REAGANOMICS WAS BEING IMPOSED!

    http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-demodeficit.htm

    Myth: Democrats in Congress created the deficit.

    Fact: Republicans controlled the Senate from 1981 to 1987, and the White House from 1981 to 1993.

    Summary:

    The Republicans controlled the Senate from 1981 through 1987, a period when the largest budget deficits of the 80s were passed. With Reagan in the White House, the GOP controlled two of the three bodies required to pass a budget.

    Argument

    Many Republicans argue that Reagan's tax cuts did not cause the mushrooming deficits of the 1980s -- it was runaway government spending. And because Democrats controlled Congress for 40 years, they are to blame for overcharging the public's credit card.

    This argument forgets one inconvenient fact: Republicans were in control of the Senate from January 1981 to January 1987. It's true that presidents must submit their budgets first to the House, and that House Democrats declared seven of Reagan's eight budgets "DOA" -- Dead on Arrival -- but the fact remains that the Senate is an equal player in the budget process. Both houses of Congress have committees for appropriations and aggregate spending. Both houses of Congress vote twice on the budget: once on the original version, and again after the conference committee hammers out a compromise version of the two competing bills.

    With Reagan wielding the veto pen in the White House, any budget standoff between House Democrats and Senate Republicans would have been tipped in the Republicans' favor. In other words, the GOP controlled two of the three bodies required to pass a budget. Therefore, Republicans dominated the budget process, and they deserve a larger share of responsibility for whatever deficits were passed on their watch.

    It should also be pointed out that Republicans passed the largest deficits of the 80s; when Democrats regained control of the Senate in 1987, they reduced the deficits in 88 and 89, as the following chart shows:

    Federal Deficit (Nominal dollars, in millions)(1)

    Year Deficit
    ---------------
    1979 -$40,183
    1980 -73,835
    1981 -78,976 < Republicans win Senate
    1982 -127,989
    1983 -207,818
    1984 -185,388
    1985 -212,334
    1986 -221,245
    1987 -149,769 < Democrats retake Senate
    1988 -155,187
    1989 -152,481
    1990 -221,384
    1991 -269,521
    1992 -290,403

    The smaller deficits of 1987-89 were the result of falling spending. Part of these were defense cuts in the Gorbachev era and the waning of the Cold War. Part of them were cuts in social spending, because this was the peak of the business cycle and there is less need for welfare and social spending when unemployment is low. The 1986 Tax Reform Act cut tax rates but also closed loopholes, actions which canceled each other out. So these smaller deficits were not the result of tax cuts, but Democratic-controlled spending!

    Finally, Reagan could have vetoed any budget he deemed unacceptable. He did not.

  • On the Program March 27 2009   15 years 1 week ago

    corporate coopting of EFCA. Disingenuously attractive name "Committee for a Level Playing Field. Progressives don't name bills as attractively like SCHIP for child health care. EFCA an exception.

    http://www.fsrn.org/audio/big-boxes-suggest-alternative-efca/4412

  • VIDEO OF THOM ON CNN'S "LARRY KING LIVE" 3/23/2009   15 years 1 week ago

    I saw you on Larry King tonight and you were fantastic! I've been listening to you for almost two years since I've been in Seattle. And the whole time I've been raving to my friends about how you're the smartest man on radio. Finally, you're getting the recognition you, and we, deserve. Spread those intelligent thoughts and ideas!

    Good on you, Thom!

  • The Real Criminals are Neither Lynndie England nor the AIG Traders   15 years 1 week ago

    EXACTLY. The whole point is to incentivize people to avoid paying the tax. It's the exact opposite of what "conservatives" do -- million dollar handouts in tax breaks with the "hopes" that people will do good things. Instead, you don't have to give them anything, and you don't have to take anything -- just give them a damned good reason to do it on their own.

  • The Real Criminals are Neither Lynndie England nor the AIG Traders   15 years 1 week ago

    Of course no one ever paid the 90 percent rate, either. However, the public benefit was that to avoid the 90 percent tax required reducing income. That meant putting the earnings back into the business. Reinvestment in US companies could not have been bad for the country's strongest period of sustained economic growth in its history.

  • The Real Criminals are Neither Lynndie England nor the AIG Traders   15 years 1 week ago

    I was blown away when I heard what you said today as to where the blame correctly belongs. At least I now know that I am not crazy in believing the same thing. I have a degree in Economics, but it doesn't take a degree to realize where all of this came from. One only needs to remember history. And those who lambst Keynes are foolhardy. Now, my one other wish is that, for a time, President Obama becomes a sort of benevolent dictator.

    On a personal note, I remember, when I was much younger, that my grandfather made an odd comment at the time. He said he was proud of being an American and also proud to have to pay the 70% marginal tax rate. He was an orphan immingrant from Poland. He eventually built his own company and became very successful. He was a wise, self taught man.

    Funny how people view this country today.

  • The Real Criminals are Neither Lynndie England nor the AIG Traders   15 years 1 week ago

    A more comprehensive of how marginal tax rates work would be very beneficial. Most average people don't know they work and panic at the thought of paying such enormous taxes. 90% tax on my income would leave me with less than 5 grand a year to live on and that's the sense that average seems to get and that's the emotion that the corporate media plays upon. Call it the "lottery mentality". Every person I know tries to win the big one and then, even before they start fantasizing about being rich, they start complaining that they'd lose over half the winnings in taxes. Not true, but most people don't know that. and it automatically makes a king's ransom in cash look not so rewarding. 90% tax on a million dollars leaves you with about a hundred grand -- nice money, but not the yacht buying kind, so people have a knee jerk reaction to that thought. But, of course, that's NOT how a marginal tax rate works. Average Joe does not know that.

    Fact. All the high taxes on the wealthy during the FDR years did NOT keep anyone from becoming wealthy. It did however keep a lot of people from becoming fuedalistically rich. That egalitarian principle, De Touceville would agree, kept Democracy alive and well those decades. Capitalism is an economic system -- a potentially nice one --, but it's NOT a political system. America comes first.

  • Listen to the The Great Debate! Hartmann vs Medved   15 years 1 week ago

    That's funny, I thought Medved won.

    I thought it was a good debate from both sides, actually. The audience was rude to both participants. Thom and Michael were both funny and seemed to get along. I would like to hear more of these. I enjoy hearing alternative thoughts.

  • On the Program March 23 2009   15 years 1 week ago

    On Monday 3-23, Thom Hartmann discussed what homeowners facing foreclosure can do. Well, one thing I've heard is to demand the loan note. This is your legal right and may delay or even bring the foreclosure grinding to a halt. Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur is advising this form of legal hardball, as in linked article: http://politicalvoicesofwomen.ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=1387629%3AB...

    Quote from article:
    KAPTUR: If you really look at the fine print, these Wall Street firms can't find the loan. They've divided it up into so many pieces, so there's a legitimate question in the law as to where that deed, where that loan actually is.

    DOBBS: In point of fact, it's not -- to be clear, if there's no note, there is no debt?

    KAPTUR: That's right.

    More where that came from, perhaps pure gold for the desperate.

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